𝐑𝐮𝐧𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 |𝟏𝟖+

28 || Tunnel Vision

He doesn't respond and the tension pouring through the phone is unmistakable, but I relish in it, find comfort in it.

I bring the cigarette to my lips and cup the end as I hold my lighter up, prepared to light it, but pause at his next words. "You still using?"

I roll my neck, working off the sudden tension in my shoulders. As far as he knew, I was still a careless, unstable liability that got high off his own shit and anything else he could get his hands on.

But he didn't need to know anything. He didn't need to know that I'd been clean for a few months now. Or that I hadn't had the urge to forget since this morning.

Alessio continues speaking, no doubtedly taking my silence as means to start reprimanding me. "Rosso men aren't foolish enough to let something like desire distract them from the goal - whatever that may be."

I start rolling my shoulders as my fingers tighten around the steering wheel.

Alessio always was an idiot.

While he had the ability to excel in tense situations and think rationally under pressure. He lacked the ability to read people, people in our line of work.

And my point is proven when the dumbass continues on with his little fucking spiel as if I'd actually give a fuck as to what he had to say. 

"Now, I may not know what role she could possibly play in whatever it is your doing." I can practically see the frown of disapproval.

Fuck you, the opinion of a Galanti that's in bed with a Moretto doesn't mean shit to me.

"But you were raised better." He finishes.

You were raised better.

You were raised better.

You were raised better.

Alessio's words drown out and my fists tighten around the steering wheel, squeezing the leather so hard that I can feel a hollow dent begin to form.

I wasn't raised better. I was conditioned better.

And by better, I mean, conditioned to keep my eyes trained on the goal and reach it, by any means possible.

Life didn't mean anything, people didn't either. They were distractions and often times the target to kill.

Tunnel vision, is what they'd call it.

Kill, manipulate, destroy.

I could do anything and everything a highly trained Made Man could do, only without the little neural responses responsible for empathy, remorse and hesitation.

I could kill him - A Don - succeed, and walk away from the repercussions without batting an eye - given the right incentive.

But I'd learned that tunnel vision was a weapon only effective to the users. Not to the one being used.

I'd been their secret weapon and when I got out, i'd learned that they'd stripped me of far more than what I'd finally come to terms with.